


Blue

by the_tracy_brothers_cheekbones



Category: Thunderbirds, Thunderbirds are go!
Genre: Big-Brother-Scott, Brother Feels, Brotherhood, Brotherly Bonding, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-04
Updated: 2015-11-04
Packaged: 2018-04-29 20:05:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5140814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_tracy_brothers_cheekbones/pseuds/the_tracy_brothers_cheekbones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘Big brother four times over, and this one’s eyes are blue.’ Or - Scott’s first time meeting Alan, with a healthy dose of Virgil and John on the side.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blue

Big brother four times over, and this one’s eyes are blue.

“Like yours, Scotty!”

Virgil, full of three year old fascination and a healthy amount of hero worship, flings his arms around Scott’s shoulders while simultaneously draping himself over big brother’s back.

Scott nods, swallowing against the lump in his throat.

“Yeah,” he agrees, voice hoarse. “They’re blue.”

And while Scott’s eyes are a dash of sky blue, baby Alan’s eyes are a pinch ocean sky blue. But still, it’s a fair comparison. Virgil fills up Scott’s peripheral, quiet and full of contemplation. Scott steals a glance from the corner of his eye and swallows down a smile at the way Virgil’s big, dark eyes study their newest baby brother.

Virgil reaches out a finger towards Alan, slowly at first, hesitant to touch something so small and fragile. And it’s kind of hilarious to Scott, what with the way Virgil’s tongue sticks out at the corner of his mouth. 

Alan, still nearly blind and completely unfocused, rotates his head left to right, following the soft sounds of John and Gordon’s clinking toys off near the edge of the deck. His little fingers grab and pulse at the fringe of the blanket Dad had draped atop of him, but when Scott makes clicking noises above his face, Alan looses interest in the blanket. 

“Is is he a alien?”

A tight smile stretches tighter across Scott’s cheeks as Virgil draws a circle above Alan’s forehead, dipping forward over Scott’s left shoulder to get a closer inspection of Tracy Number 5.

“No,” Scott chuckles, nudging Virgil back with his shoulder.

Virgil’s not deterred though, set on examining their brother further. 

“Well, he looks like one,” he decides after a moment of contemplation. He nods to himself then, crossing his arms in finality, words slow and confident despite big brother’s assurances of the contrary.

Scott shrugs, snapping his fingers above Alan’s face.

Alan doesn’t respond to Scott’s attempts at engagement, and instead tries to fit his entire fist into his mouth. Virgil, a puzzled frown curving his lips, settles his arms on Scott’s shoulder and says, mostly to himself, “I think he’s a alien.”

“Why?”

Virgil shrugs. 

Alan’s blue eyes are back on Scott again, buggy and captivated.

“He’s not an alien, Bear. He just hasn’t grown into his face yet.” Dad’s voice booms around the confines of the deck, and the screen door slams shut behind him. The sound startles Alan, who lets out a shrill cry, and in turns scares Virgil to take refuge behind Scott’s back.

Dad chuckles, coming to stand near Virgil’s shoulder.

“It’s okay, Virgil,” Dad assures, the way only Dad’s can. “He’s still pretty little; give him a few weeks and his face will grow into his eyes.”

“Oh.” Virgil’s shoulders shrug, and his nose brushes Scott’s cheek as he turns to look at Big Brother, gauging his reaction to this news. And then, the question of all questions, the one that haunts his dreams and reverberates around his head late at night: “Why?”

And Scott’s glad that Dad’s there, because he can’t take one more little brother questioning him about everything:

Why does the sun hide from the moon?

Who are the clouds running away from?

Did you know that there’s a planet made up of diamonds?

How can Gordon be so little and so annoying?

And Scott’s personal favorite: Why do they need another brother?

(For the record, he loves Gordon - really, he does - but he’s asked himself that same question multiple times over the past year and has yet to figure out the answer.)

It’s a warm day for early March, but they’re all in boots because the snow’s still melting and there’s a bite in the air. John’s thick soled boots slap against the wooden boards as he abandons Gordon and makes his way across the deck, pulling Scott from his thoughts. 

The little red lights on John’s boots flash in the darkening evening sky, a bag of veggie chips crunching in his hand. Gordon chases behind him, all thirteen month waddle and grabby arms, lured in by the little black bag of awesomeness dangling precariously from John’s gloved fingers.

Taking the recently vacated space at Scott’s hip, John purses his lips, furrows his brows, and leans in on Scott’s thigh. Head tilted, he studies their youngest brother with a look of, like, fondness or something that Scott can’t really put a name to.

“Well what’s wrong with him?” he asks after a moment.

Dad stands just off behind Scott, and John tears his eyes away from Alan, distracted by Dad and Virgil’s booted foot. It nearly kicks him in the face as Virgil swings his feet from where he’s perched on Dad’s hip, to which the offender just giggles hysterically at John’s rare show of exaggerated surprise.

Gordon, devious and just plain old naughty, sees his chance while John’s preoccupied and snatches the bag of veggie chips right out of his hand.

Scott watches as Gordon pulls out a handful of five sticks, and proceeds to shove them all into his mouth at once.

“What do you mean, John?”

And Scott feels like John should just come with a warning for clarification needed.

“His eyes,” John sighs into his palm, resting his elbow on Scott’s thigh. John is - has been and probably always will be - made up of harsh angles and long runs of limb. His elbow is pointy, no less than his hip, and both dig into Scott’s thigh as he leans forward, using Scott bodily for balance. “You said his face hasn’t grown into them yet?”

Scott catches Dad’s snort (just barely) and fields a glance over his shoulder at Dad. The movement throws John’s balance off, his elbow slipping off of Scott’s thigh and he tumbles forward, catching himself before his knees connect with deck floor.

“It’s just an expression, John.”

Johnny’s silent for a moment, eyes back on Alan and narrowed in suspicion.

“He’ll have these chipmunk cheeks in no time,” Dad assures, pinching Virgil’s cheeks, rounded out with the last remnants of baby fat not yet lost. Virgil giggles helplessly as Dad’s fingers turn into the tickle-monster, and Scott feels this weird sort of churn in his stomach that he sometimes gets when Virgil laughs like that. 

His cheeks hurt from smiling so wide, but when he turns his attention back to baby Alan, he finds John’s eyes on him, and the faintest of smiles slipping away.

“So he’s not an alien then?” John asks, because he’s five and sometimes he needs clarification too.

John pushes himself off of Scott’s thigh, and snatches the bag of veggie chips back from Gordon.

“No, Son, I promise you he’s not.”

Gordon fusses, screeching at John for the chips. Virgil, attention now on the little black bag, kicks his legs until Dad lets him down, and rushes over to the corner of the deck where Gordon has John pinned. John, to his credit, has a fairly amused smile on his face and holds the bag of chips behind his back, green eyes shinning with self congratulation at his ability to be cunning as his little brothers try to figure out a way to get to the crunchy, delicious prize.

“But aliens are real,” John argues, insists matter-of-fact, eyes following Virgil as he jumps for the spinach veggie chip John holds out to him. And John, mile long legs and an overall wiry kid, towers above both Virg and Gordon. 

It strikes Scott just how big John is compared to their brothers, even though he’s only got a couple years on Virgil.

“I never said they weren’t,” Dad says. He shrugs with indifference, but Scott hears the smile in his voice. “I’m just saying that your brother isn’t one of them.”

But whether John can’t be convinced or he’s just too busy teasing his brothers with food, he doesn’t respond. Just hands over two chips to the impatiently grabby hands, and slowly feeds himself a carrot chip.

Gordon’s hands go back up, signing more to John.

“Johnny, I want more!” Virgil adds, bouncing in front of John. He takes his chip in small bites, and his golden eyes that glow dark in the setting sun never leaving John’s face (except on occasion, when he zeroes in on the bag).

“You haven’t even finished the one you have.”

The sigh comes just as Scott expects it, and Dad slips into the seat beside Scott. Alan’s blue eyes travel back and forth, a smile spreading on his face when Dad’s fingers find his button nose.

“Daaad!” 

Scott swears, he hears that whine in his nightmares.

“John!” Dad barks. “Share with your brothers.”

“I am!”

John sends a truly pathetic frown Scott’s way, calling silently for brotherly backup, but Scott barely takes note. All he sees is the way Alan’s eyes are clear, still fairly dark with infancy but not too far from his own. A tiny little hand reaches out, and like Scott had with all of the others, lets Alan grab his finger. A bottle is produced from the inside of Dad’s coat and placed in front of it, and Alan screeches a little when Scott pulls his finger free to grab it.

High maintenance little bugger, this one is.

“No, you’re not,” Dad barks back at John. “You can give them more than one. I didn’t give that bag to you for you to hoard.”

Alan’s feet kick something crazy against the loose blanket as the bottle is pressed to his lips, but he turns his face away and a small stream of weird smelling white liquid stains the collar of his onesie. 

Dad’s watching him, so Scott doesn’t look at him when he asks, “Why does it smell so weird?”

There’s a brief silence, then, “It’s your mom’s special milk.” And that’s that.

(Scott’s not exactly sure what Mom’s special milk is, but she and Dad are kinda weird about answering that question, so he’s basically stopped asking.)

“It is gonna make him poop really bad?”

Dad barks out a laugh, and it startles Virgil and Gordon from where they’re attempting to climb up John’s legs.

“Probably.”

Scott nods. “Well you can have him back, then.”

“John Glenn!” Dad warns instead of responding to Scott, though his eyes don’t leave Alan. It’s a Dad trick.

A foot stomping, Gordon crying, and an indignant shout of, “Dad, I am sharing!” from the other side of the deck has Scott wondering why exactly his parents thought it would be fun to give him three more little brothers when John was plenty.

But baby Alan gurgles, and a smile slides on his face as Scott presses the bottle back to his lips. He wiggles it around the toothless gums, urging his brother to latch onto the nipple and suck.

It’s weird, he thinks. It wasn’t that he wasn’t excited to have another little brother, but until now? Until he had him on his lap and felt the weight of something so precious held up securely only by his arms, he hadn’t realized just how much he’d needed another little brother. 

He loves his other brothers as all big brothers should - but you have to admit: four is a lot. Like, a lot a lot. Most of the kids in his class only have one brother or sister, not four. But somehow, this makes Scott feel special. He can’t really explain it, can’t find the right words. But he likes the way it makes him feel.

John’s most likely an alien, Virgil is his little clip-on mini-me and Gordon is… well Gordon is Gordon. And Alan is still too little for Scott to really categorize, but just a couple weeks old and the kid’s already got a grabby, pay-attention-to-me personality, and Scott knows that as long as he has his brothers, his life will never be boring.

And Destiny is a jerk, and decides to prove him right.

“EW! Scott!” John’s high pitched squeal draws Scott back to the present, and he startles with a little jump as John, Virgil, and Gordon all materialize at his side.

John’s pointing at his lap, and the warmth hits him the same moment that realization dawns as to just what that dark spot on his jeans is… 

He looks over to Dad, thoroughly done with little brothers and all the joys they bring.

“Dad,” he starts, nudging Virgil away with his knee. “Johnny and Virg and Alan and Gordon are cool and all, but no more babies - okay?”

And without waiting for a response, he yanks the blanket off of his shoulder and hands Alan off to his father, stomping back into the house. 

Disbelief and two little brothers follow him all the way in.

He’d held Alan for a total of fifteen minutes, and Alan had still managed to pee on him.

Yeah, he loves his brothers. All of them. But he really, really doesn’t need anymore.

These four have got the whole Little Brother business covered.


End file.
